to speak, perchance to be heard

membership and its benefits

Someone just called my husband to get advice how to structure a class she’s giving this week. That’s not unusual or problematic in and of itself; he’s usually happy to help. What’s the problem?

Two-fold. At least.

First of all, he’s got the same amount of work to prepare. Probably a lot more.

Second of all, he doesn’t really have the time to talk to her. That’s included in the first point but also added to it is other pressing responsibilities. He works on people’s problems and that’s important, but they’re asking him to basically figure out what they should say! I mean, after all, they’re not his kids, right? Enough already.

But the main thing is that (I thought there’d be more than 2 points) I’m sitting here, so I’m yelling (okay, waving my hands and making faces and grunting) that

SHE’S NOT A MEMBER OF OUR SHUL!!!!!!

That’s the main point, as I’ve clued you in by the title.

There are a number of people who float around our community not joining any shul. Or then deciding that even though they like my husband, they don’t really like the people in the shul so they want to ask him all their she’elot (and they have TONS!) but not join the shul and you understand, don’t you?

No.

I understand that you think you’re better than everyone else.

I understand that you don’t accept your communal responsibility.

I understand that you think my husband should care about you because you’re very important and, bottom-line, very self-centered.

But I don’t understand that you keep calling and calling.

Well, yes I do. He’s too nice and he doesn’t tell you point-blank to stop.

Oh wait! Yes he did! All these [insert your Yiddish word of choice here] people called before Pesach about their little [again Yiddish WOC] food fetishes that they wanted to use and thought he’d understand. And he actually did tell one of them to call her rabbi.

Maybe she did, but wouldn’t you know? The next time, she called me for my opinion! I told her I wouldn’t think of doing it; Pesach is just one week and we should be disengaging from our food patterns and that should be enough. She called back again, got ISHI this time and asked him what he thought I’d think about such and such!